IT Security Employment Soars to Record High

January 18, 2017

The number of people employed in the United States as information security analysts reached a record high in 2016, according to uncirculated employment data provided by the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Based on the same household survey used to determine the monthly unemployment rate, BLS reports that 89,000 individuals last year were employed in the United States as information security analysts. That’s a whopping 27 percent increase from the 70,000 people in 2015 who identified themselves as information security analysts.

Information security analyst is the only one of the 535 job categories tracked by the BLS that is specific to information security. Other job classifications – especially those in the computer occupation categories such as network and computer administrators – have cybersecurity responsibilities but are not classified as such. BLS surveys began tracking the 535 occupation categories in 2011, and since then, employment among information security analysts has more than doubled from 44,000….SOURCE